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Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

online.wsj.com

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Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#101

Post by k-mcgrady »

abruzzi wrote: post #44

Inevitably, this will make people like me (Mac user that considers $50 a night overpriced) book through other sites. Does orbitz think I only price through them? Most people I know price at least a half dozen locations before deciding, so as long as everyone doesn't jack prices for Mac users, Mac user's business will naturally migrate to whomever doesn't try to screw us.

They aren't charging Mac users more. They have just found that Mac users tend to spend more on hotels. Therefore instead of showing the least expensive at the top of the list they should ones $20-30 more. If Mac users are in general more likely to purchase this anyway they are just making the search easier for users. You can still get the cheaper prices you just have to scroll down or change the sort.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#102

Post by vitobcn »

starship wrote: post #95
suprgeek wrote: post #90

It is important to read the article carefully: WRONG - Mac users see higher prices for same hotels than Windows users RIGHT - Mac users are sometimes also shown hotels that are costlier than their windows users "...so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see."

Regardless, it never ceases to amaze me how controversial pricing discrimination is. Especially since most people have taken Econ 101: pricing discrimination eliminates dead-weight loss, which should be a good thing right? Nope, instant controversy.

In my opinion this is not about econ 101.

It seems obvious why two people getting the exact same product / service but paying a different amount is a controversial matter. Especially, since the discriminating factor is the fact that you are willing to pay more!

If a vendor wants to price discriminate, there are ways of doing it, such as loyalty programs or rewards, which do not 'offend' the consumer and still manage to capture (most of) the consumer surplus.

In this case though, this is not what Orbitz is doing, they keep the prices constant but show different default options.

Isn't that the right way to do it? If Mac users choose options (a, b, c) the most often then these are the ones that you should default to. And the same for non-Mac users but with frequent options (d, e, f).

And in this case it happens to be that, on average, (a, b, c) have higher prices than (d, e, f).

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#103

Post by gurkendoktor »

Amazon also shows costlier suggestions to customers who have bought costlier products before. Orbitz is doing what they can with their comparatively limited knowledge.

The ironic thing about this is that many airfare websites have a German version with curiously higher prices than the US version, and that Apple's computers themselves are more expensive in Europe. (Sadly I'm never sure how much of this can be explained with taxes.)

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#104

Post by pooriaazimi »

rmc wrote: post #92
raverbashing wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please explain how would you go about detecting linux/windows/mac without agent string (with the exception of detecting Safari/Konqueror/IE) Screen size? Fonts?

It's much harder, but possible. You could look at browser features in JS and compare them to what's known for browsers to do and guess the browser. Some browsers are highly likely to be certain ODs. It's highly highly likely that they are just looking at user agent strings.

Well, the code to look at JS features must be written in JS itself (adding features to an array, sending them over JSON, redirecting to a new page, etc.). I'll pull out my Dev Console and fuck with it (set a breakpoint and change that part of the code), and make them think I'm using lynx instead of Safari.

So, I don't think you can ever really know what browser your users use.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#105

Post by alister »

suprgeek wrote: post #90

It is important to read the article carefully: WRONG - Mac users see higher prices for same hotels than Windows users RIGHT - Mac users are sometimes also shown hotels that are costlier than their windows users "...so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see."

It's not the Right and Wrong interpretation that matters here -- it's the spin. Orbitz is probably run by a bunch of techies, and techies don't understand PR. Orbitz messed up in how they spun their story to the Wall Street Journal.

They could have spun their story to say that Mac users have a greater preference for, say, the Westin, Hyatt, and Marriott, whereas Windows user prefer Super 8, Days Inn, Motel 6, and Econo Lodge.

Then they would have gotten an uncontroversial story out of the WSJ -- possibly even a positive story.

This reminds me of the Coca Cola vending machines that would automatically adjust prices upward from $2 to $3 on hot, sunny days. This was met was public hostility. If instead they had promoted their machines as automatically discounting their normal price of $3 down to $2 on cold, non-sunny days, then no one would mind.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#106

Post by jasonlotito »

dave1010uk wrote: post #87
vishaldpatel wrote: post #9

Does this means that Linux users get the best deals? Or maybe it's Windows users with cracked copies of Windows.

When the Humble Indie Bundles are on sale (where consumers can pay what they want), the stats showed the average Linux user paid more than Mac or Windows users.

I don't think that necessarily carries over. For the most part, all the Linux users I know contribute more simply because they want to encourage other developers to create games for Linux. It's a point of price, they can point at, and say "Hey, Linux users spent more then Windows or Mac users."

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#107

Post by glesica »

starship wrote: post #95
suprgeek wrote: post #90

It is important to read the article carefully: WRONG - Mac users see higher prices for same hotels than Windows users RIGHT - Mac users are sometimes also shown hotels that are costlier than their windows users "...so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see."

Regardless, it never ceases to amaze me how controversial pricing discrimination is. Especially since most people have taken Econ 101: pricing discrimination eliminates dead-weight loss, which should be a good thing right? Nope, instant controversy.

Guy who has taken Econ 101 here.

Price discrimination doesn't eliminate dead-weight loss (it really has nothing to do with dead-weight loss), it just converts consumer surplus into producer surplus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination#Types_of_...

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#108

Post by hythloday »

bigiain wrote: post #70
InclinedPlane wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on your moral code, of course.

We knew that _downward_ differential pricing worked (in terms of increasing conversions) - a popup saying "Hi, you're a return visitor to our website, we can discount this room rate 10% if you book today) always increased conversions. We sure as hell _experimented_ to see if the decrease in conversions by bumping margins (and hence prices) up was worthwhile in terms of total profit. I'd happily make an argument that…

a popup saying "Hi, you're a return visitor to our website, we can discount this room rate 10% if you book today" always increased conversions.

Did you also test a popup saying "Hi, you're a first-time visitor to our website, we can discount this room rate 10% if you book today"? :)

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#109

Post by RyanMcGreal »

alister wrote: post #105
suprgeek wrote: post #90

It is important to read the article carefully: WRONG - Mac users see higher prices for same hotels than Windows users RIGHT - Mac users are sometimes also shown hotels that are costlier than their windows users "...so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see."

It's not the Right and Wrong interpretation that matters here -- it's the spin. Orbitz is probably run by a bunch of techies, and techies don't understand PR. Orbitz messed up in how they spun their story to the Wall Street Journal. They could have spun their story to say that Mac users have a greater preference for, say, the Westin, Hyatt, and Marriott, whereas Windows user prefer Super 8, Days Inn, Motel 6, and Eco…

> If instead they had promoted their machines as automatically discounting their normal price of $3 down to $2 on cold, non-sunny days, then no one would mind.

I have a hard time believing anyone would fall for that spin.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#110

Post by maciek_kon »

ctrl_freak wrote: post #24
badhairday wrote: post #2

Paywall. :(

Protip: many paywalls, including this one can be circumvented by using Google's URL redirection service: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB... Simply use 'www.google.com/url?q=' and paste in the address of the article which has a paywall.

cool, just turned it into a bookmarklet http://paywall-killer.blogspot.com/
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